The Armenian Weekly
October 13, 2007
Honorable Ms. Pelosi,
I am writing to you regarding H.Res.106, which would recognize the Armenian genocide of 1915. You have received several letters asking you to prevent the resolution from reaching the House floor, including the letter dated Sept. 25, jointly signed by eight former U.S. Secretaries of State. I would respectfully refer you to a similar situation that was faced by the United States Senate in 1927.
At the conclusion of World War I, the United States signed a treaty with Turkey on Aug. 6, 1923. Many statements for and against ratification of the Treaty with Turkey were published during the following three years. On Jan. 3, 1924, the Honorable Charles Hughes, the former Secretary of State, addressed the Council on Foreign Relations. (“Foreign Affairs,” Supplement to Vol. II, No. 2). He indicated, just as the letter you have just received indicates, that should the United States fail to ratify the treaty with Turkey, our economic and political interests would be in jeopardy. He even quoted a letter by Dr. James L. Barton, who was the Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, saying that “If the treaty (with Turkey) should be rejected, I am convinced that the continuance of the American institutions in Turkey, with their large investment interests, would be jeopardized” (Nov. 24, 1923).
Mustafa Kemal himself, the first president of the modern Turkish state, indicated in an interview on Jan. 9, 1927, a week prior to the U.S. Senate vote on the treaty, that the United State’s “present policy reacts against America” and that “our mineral recourses which are awaiting American engineering ingenuity and capital, when properly worked up, would furnish to America much of the raw material that her country is not able to produce.”
Despite all this rhetoric and the implicit—and explicit—threats, the Democratic Party, lead by Senator William King of Utah, stood in unity and rejected the treaty on Jan. 17, 1927. This was one of only three treaties outright rejected in the history of the U.S. Senate. In his statement in the New York Times, on Jan. 18, 1927, Senator King indicated the reason for his principled stand: “The treaty was opposed upon three major grounds. Namely, that it failed to provide for the fulfillment of the Wilson award to Armenia, guarantees for protection of Christians and non-Muslims in Turkey, and recognition by Turkey of the American nationality of former subjects of Turkey.”
“Obviously,” he continued “it would be unfair and unreasonable for the United States to recognize and respect the claims and professions of Kemal so long as he persists in holding control and sovereignty over Wilson Armenia—now a No Man’s Land, while a million Armenian refuges and exiles are people without a country.”
I am confident that you and your esteemed colleagues of the 110th Congress will be able make a similar principled stand and bring H.Res.106 for a floor vote.
Respectfully,
Shahe Fereshetian, M.D.
Lessons from the United States Senate 1927
